Tuesday, July 01, 2014

That's the meaning of Monday's holding that private employers can decide on the basis of pretty much any strongly held belief what the definition of necessary medical care is for their employees.

So how do we get a different Supreme Court?

1) we kick up an almighty fuss to put any wavering politicians, especially Democrats, on notice that we expect full respect for women's rights.

2) we keep electing a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate until some of the recalcitrant old men on the Court die off. No fooling.

Boring, but true. And there ain't no way around it. I've been waiting for an occasion to post this rant from Lawyers, Guns and Money. It is about the legislative compromises that winning politics require in the USA, but the point goes double for getting a better set of Supremes.

There is not a single social movement in American history that has not needed the usual terms of bourgeois politics to win change. Not one.

10 comments:

As Ginsburg said, this is a toe in the door. Redouble checking our lists and checking them twice to hold the Senate for Democrats. We may not like all these people but too much is at stake in '14. We also should be looking over people big time to determine who might be a viable presidential candidate if Hillary opts not to run. Actually even to go against her in the primaries and be sure she's ready for it. She's not my choice but any Dem will be given the climate and what would happen if the court goes farther right :( it doesn't bear thinking but precious won rights could piece by piece be stripped away by the same old same old. Very disillusioning day for our country and they are young enough that they're likely to be around a long time to keep doing this to one precious right after another :((((

let me get this straight. you would actually for the totally corrupt Hillary so at least women could get free birth control while she was waging war crimes against unthreatening innocents and destroying what was left of the working class?

Yes amspirnational, I am indeed saying that, for the foreseeable future, I think ANY Democrat, including Hillary, is a necessary evil if we want to live to fight another day on many fronts. It's distasteful, but true simply true.

And I also believe and work for social movements that can make these Dems better -- they improve some when the people kick their butts.

All we have to do is look at states where Republicans have taken power. They have purposely blocked anything happening now purely for their own selfish gain. That's not patriotism. What they will do to women's rights, to the poor, to minorities has been shown in state after state. I still hope hillary won't run and we will get another more viable option, but the media is doing all it can to make Obama look bad-- and that's on the right or left.

Birth control has been covered under insurance plans. Viagra has too with less reason. Family planning is one way to avoid poverty in many families. To try and block that while you cut programs for the poor is enough to make my blood boil... and these days that doesn't take much.

You both made my point.Bipartisan corruption...easier of course when gender struggle vitiates class struggle, but this is not perhaps the main point but merely a symptom, among other things, of Americans' virtual total lack of political sophistication.

Which is to say the American electorate is incapable of developing a multiparty system.So will support the (perhaps, perhaps not, either way) lesser of the state terrorists/banksterprotectors.

I do not want a collapse of our system and do not think we are going to have one. Yes, we have a lot of people in both parties who we would rather weren't there but their own states want them. My Senators are both men I think do good things. I support those in other states who stand for the values I believe matter most. That is how it works.

We don't need chaos; but if it comes, it'll be a long while before we find answers to the serious problems we face. This country though is not collapsing anytime soon-- no matter how much others might wish it to be so. We do have choices though that don't support wars around the world, and it's up to us to donate to those campaigns. Elizabeth Warren is a good example. Bernie Sanders another. I like Tom Udall and Al Franken. They won't do everything I like but that's how it goes. I can't expect to elect a clone and if one ran likely a lot of others would not like them.

And I don't personally think Hillary is totally corrupt. I just think she's been wrong a lot-- think Margaret Thatcher. I hope she won't run. I just wonder though if she doesn't, who will.

Social issues are very important to me. I have grandchildren and want them to have the freedoms I did. I realize some ideologues don't want to think they matter but social issues impact our day to day living and that of our neighbors. I'll be voting on them and so will a lot of other Americans-- who don't always agree with me, of course, on what they should be.

And I didn't agree with almost anything Nader wanted... He led to Gore losing and us having Bush. Nader said there was no difference. I don't buy it. Gore would not have invaded Iraq, given the rich a big tax cut and he would have done a lot more on global climate change. There was a difference.

I understand you don't want a collapse. Given a choice between a collapse and continuing intervention-imperialism rampage in the Middle East and elsewhere, you take the latter. Others suffermore than we. Palestinians< Iraqis, Afghanis, Ukrainians etc.

This is one of the reasons Occupy Wall Street faltered. Not enough people willing to do what, make the sacrifices, take the risks which folks like Ian Welsh recommended, which would have brought the system to the point of collapse or reform.

I think Occupy failed because it didn't have a next step and a platform of anything that most could either understand or would want to see implemented. To say we just want what you have isn't going to go very far. They needed somebody in their movement to get political and run for office with real programs. The group didn't want that. They wanted to stay grassroots but at a certain point, any movement has to become political if it wants to govern. I think it still could happen if the movement could get the right leaders interested in taking it on.

Of course, Tea Party wasn't really grassroots being backed by the Koch and the allies they brought in to do the grunt work, but it did go political. That's what it takes. And the original platforms have to sound reasonable to the middle which is where elections are won.

What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."